Sunday, August 27, 2017 10:27 AM

Friday, August 25, 2017 8:38 AM

Thursday, August 10, 2017 3:39 AM

CHRISTIAN knights and Mameluke warriors were fighting on the walls. Now the wreck of a 13th century ship reveals the desperate bid to save the Holy Land.

The port of the city of Acre was a vital lifeline for Crusader knights and settlers alike. Through it streamed European pilgrims, horses, fighting men and manufacturing goods, all vital to sustain Christianity’s tenuous hold in what would later become Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

The Egyptian Mameluke Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil — leading an army of 100,000 men and horses — rolled back the Christian defences, weakened by almost two centuries of fighting to maintain control over the Holy Land.

European interest was failing — despite efforts by Pope Gregory X to summon reinforcements. And the militant orders — international organisations of warrior-monks…

Tuesday, August 1, 2017 2:35 PM

1291 The End Of The Kindom Of Jerusalem, The Birth Of A Confederation. Brave Crusaders Fighting For This Land, This New Country. A Land Of Rules And Of Freedoms.

Wil.

The Federal Charter of 1291

The Federal Charter from early August 1291 is Switzerland’s oldest constitutional document. In this ancient pact, the valley communities of Central Switzerland, Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden pledged to help each other resist any threat of violence or injustice. Foreign judges were not to be tolerated, while the existing power balance remained intact.

The federal charter of 1291

Procedures for criminal and civil cases and for disputes among the signatories were also laid down.

This Federal Charter has been officially regarded as the founding document of the Swiss Confederation only since the end of the 19th century. The Federal Council was primarily responsible for this, as, taking its lead from the charter itself, it organised national jubilee celebrations in 1891 and then in 1899 made 1 August the National Day of the Swiss Confederation.

Underlying this was the conviction that the democratic Federal State of 1848 represented a continuation of the Old Swiss Confederacy that existed before 1798, and that the historical nucleus of this Confederacy lay in the Alpine regions of Central Switzerland. This belief was linked to the legend that a group of freedom-loving men had sworn an oath of confederate alliance on the Rütli meadow above Lake Lucerne. This view of history has since been instilled in every Swiss schoolchild as a compulsory element of the curriculum.

Invoking the Federal Charter as the most venerable version of the Swiss Constitution and thus establishing a centuries-old, binding tradition of a society sworn to uphold freedom helped to cement national cohesion in the democratic Federal State. The pressure of political developments after 1930 led to the Federal Charter being regarded as more than simply the basis for a defensive alliance, but as a resolute response to the threat posed by foreign powers.

Thus, through the practical application of this lesson in history, the public came to perceive this ostensibly unprepossessing document with its symbolic character as a key element of Swiss historical and political culture in general. This also led to the Federal Charter Archive being established in Schwyz simply in order to house the Federal Charter. The Archive, in 1999 renamed the Museum of Swiss Charters, was opened as a national memorial in a ceremony in 1936.

The Old Swiss Confederacy, however, was far less significant in the late middle ages, and it was not unique either. It constituted a peaceful alliance of a type also found elsewhere at the time. The Charter certainly did not amount to a revolutionary act of self-determination by the peasantry, but rather secured the status quo in the interests of the local elites.

For centuries, this alliance of the valleys of Central Switzerland from 1291 received practically no mention, the document itself only being rediscovered in 1758 in the Schwyz archives. In the constitutional tradition of the Old Confederacy prior to 1798, the alliance of 1291, in contrast to the Federal Charter of 1315 (Pact of Brunnen), played no role. Nor is there any indication that it served as a model for subsequent federal alliances. Unanswerable questions relating to its historical provenance and interpretation also suggest that the contemporary importance of this document in more recent times has been considerably overestimated.

An appropriate assessment of the historical circumstances does not detract from the enormous cultural value of this prominent document, which is still referred to regularly in present day political debates.

Summary of the Latin text

For the common good and proper establishment of peace, the following rules are agreed :

In view of the troubled circumstances of this time, the people and communities of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden promise to assist each other by every means possible against one and all who may inflict on them violence or injustice within their valleys and without.

Each community shall help the other with every counsel and favour and at its own expense in the event of any assault on persons or goods within and without the valleys and to this end have sworn a solemn oath to uphold this agreement in confirmation and renewal of a more ancient accord.

Every man shall continue to serve his overlord to the best of his abilities.

The office of judge may not be obtained for any price and may only be exercised by those who are natives or resident with us.

Any dispute amongst the Confederates shall be settled by the most prudent amongst us, whose decision shall be defended by all.

Those who commit murder shall themselves be put to death. A murderer who flees may never return. Those who protect him shall themselves be banished from the valley until they are recalled by the Confederates.

Those who maliciously injure others by fire shall lose their rights as fellow countrymen, and anyone who protects and defends such an evil-doer shall be held liable for the damage done.

Any man who robs a Confederate or injures him in any way shall be held liable to the extent of his property in the valleys.

The property of debtors or sureties may only be seized with the permission of a judge

Every man shall obey his judge and must if need be indicate the judge in the valley before whom he must appear.

Any man who rebels against a verdict and thereby injures a Confederate shall be compelled by all other Confederates to make good the damage done.

War or discord amongst the Confederates shall be settled by an arbiter and if any party fails to accept the decision or fails to make good the damage, the Confederates are bound to defend the other party.

These rules for the common good shall endure forever.

Done with the seals of the three aforementioned communities and valleys at the beginning of August 1291.

Monday, July 31, 2017 7:48 AM

With the heavy rain proving the church roof is now definitely watertight, a small gathering greet the grant representatives from Listed Places of Worship Roof Repair Fund which contributed over £70,000 towards the costs of re-roofing and repairs. From left: Archdeacon of Bodmin Ven Audrey Elkington, roof repair fund programme manager Sarah Palmer and grants officer Sarah Drewell, roof and tower restoration project team members Laurence Harvey, Richard Cavin and David Attwell. Picture: Peter Glaser

A CORNISH church founded by the Knights Templar has been saved from ruin thanks to nearly £90,000 of grants and huge efforts from the local community.

St Catherine’s Church lies in the wild hamlet of Temple on Bodmin Moor. It has had a chequered history from its origins as an outpost for the secretive medieval order of the Knights Templar to its reputation in the 18th century as the Gretna Green of the South West.

Sunday, July 30, 2017 12:57 PM

Sunday, July 30, 2017 11:16 AM

Solomon’s Stables & Jesus’s Cradle

Many consider the Temple Mount, where the Second Holy Temple of the Jews stood in the time of Jesus, to be the very heart of Jerusalem. Of particular interest to Christian pilgrims on Holy Land tours are the areas of the Temple Mount known as Solomon’s Stables and Jesus’ Cradle.

Much of the Temple Mount’s splendor is hidden deep underground in a large complex of tunnels and halls. Among these is a series of arched vaults called Solomon’s Stables, so called because the Crusaders, who took control of the area from the Muslims in the 11th century, believed that this is where King Solomon, who had administered the construction of the First Temple, kept his unusually large assembly of horses.

In actuality, the arches served to support an expansion of the Temple Mount that Herod the Great built in the 1st century BC. Over a millennium later, The Knights Templar, an elite fighting force during the Crusades, actually did stable their horses here for some time.

In 1996, the Waqf, the Islamic organization in charge of the Temple Mount today, built a large underground mosque known as Marwani Prayer Hall at the site of Solomon’s Stables. It is no simple matter for non-Muslims to gain access to the site today.

Near the northern entrance of Solomon’s Stables is a small room known as Jesus’ Cradle. Today, it is a place of Muslim worship. According to Muslim tradition, this is the spot where the infant Jesus was presented at the Temple by his mother Mary. Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet and claim that this location was given to them by Christians. Many believe that there was once a church on this site.

Saturday, July 29, 2017 1:36 PM

Stablelity

What About The Christians, Our Blessed Christian Kingdom Of Jerusalem, The Stables On The Mount Are Still Ours. As Turk Working On Erase Every Trace Of Christianity, Especially The Before Mohamed Era,But Has No Claim On The Armenian Genocide (1.5 Millions, Christians Dead…)Stand Fast And Protect Jerusalem,,,(From The Jews And The Christian)As Christians we Should Break This All Muslim Kinda Thinking, And We Also Claiming Our Heritage, Give Us Back Our Stables, That We Can Pray…

Wil.

Palestinians: The Metal Detector Scam

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Palestinians, claiming that the metal detectors were a “desecration” of the mosque — which is actually located on the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam – entered into violent clashes with Israeli security forces. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Israel and called on Muslims to “protect” Jérusalem.

Sunday, July 16, 2017 11:38 AM

Erdogan THREAT: “No European, no Westerner will be able to safely walk the streets, anywhere in the world”

It ought to come as no surprise that Erdogan issued threats to Westerners.

Turkey openly interferes in Bulgaria’s elections. History’s roots run deep. Outcomes of wars, effects of ancient policies can still be useful even in the 21st century!

Ankara, Turkey, 04.01.2017: “The minarets are our bayonets. The faithful are our soldiers. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar.” So said the Turkish president during his presidential campaign 20 years ago. He was charged and jailed for this statement by a secular political system in Turkey that he later changed to accommodate his brand of dangerous political Islam. One of his political supporters, Aslihan Dede, 21, a student journalist wearing a Muslim head scarf in Istanbul, said with a self-convinced glee “He is one of us” — meaning President Erdogan is a certified Islamist in power in a major NATO ally country with immediate aspirations for membership into the EU, the world’s most exclusive political club for democracies! He lifted restrictions on Islamic headscarves and pumped religion into schools, slowly reversing the 95-year old legacy of secularism in Turkey founded by its first president, Kemal Pasha Ataturk. Erdogan and his party have won nine straight elections, drawing their strongest support from poorer and more religious Turks. Meanwhile, he put in an administrative and political stranglehold on the remaining Greek Christian minority in Turkey, ensuring that the very old and traditional Christian Ecumenical East-Catholic Church of Istanbul will be finally eliminated after its current and last Patriarch, Bartholomew, dies in office. The few coastal Greek communities have all largely abandoned Turkey in the last 25 years.

Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and author of “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World” detected this pattern of pan-Islamic populism sanctioned at the ballot box, which uses and abuses the vehicle of democratization to placate Western powers with a veneer of legitimacy, all just to ensure a gradual political victory for Islamism, if not also at the point of the bayonet in the street. The so-called ”Islamic State” draws strength from ideas that have a broad resonance among Muslim-majority populations, in Turkey, and in Egypt and elsewhere in the Islamic world. For this reason, Turkey’s cynical Islamist president supported the dreadful ISIS in the early years when he was hoping to see a minority Alawite government in Syria overthrown by a hardcore Sunni Muslim rebellion from the desert dustbins of the wide open Syrian countryside. In this way, he was hoping to demoralize Turkey’s own Alawite minority, which looks up to the Syrian Alawites as their brethren. In a sign of how committed Erdogan is to Islamism – he still remains the most outspoken supporter of Mohammed Mursi, the jailed Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt who was toppled by the Egyptian army in 2013. Erdogan’s government hosts prominent Brotherhood leaders in exile. This author believes that President Erdogan has engineered or instigated a military coup against himself in Turkey last year in order to flush out his enemies inside the Turkish military and then eliminate them (which he did).

The dictatorial appetite of Erdogan was satisfied for now by the referendum on the expansion of presidential powers in Turkey, held earlier this year (in April). The changes to Turkey’s political system proposed by Erdogan (and adopted following the successful referendum) eviscerate the power of both the legislative and judicial branches of the government in favor of the executive, which will be concentrated in the hands of one person (Erdogan). The new presidential term limits allow Erdogan to remain in office as late as 2029. Erdogan has also abandoned an ambitious foreign policy that boosted Turkey’s economy by securing the flow of foreign capital. Instead, he replaced it with crude nationalism. He rails at neighboring countries on various pretexts, even at America for protecting his chief domestic rival who lives in exile in Pennsylvania (Gulen). He still has a low key Kurdish insurgency to deal with, as well as various sorts of blowbacks from returning terrorists who used to receive covert Turkish government support abroad. And above all else – Erdogan has been cynically exploiting the millions of Turks who live in Europe as his power play’s exponents. He would incite them so they hold rallies and he would send money to open schools in Europe where only Muslims need apply (madrassas). Every little incident in Europe involving Muslims his government uses as a pretext for a verbal onslaught against the Europeans. He is an absolute danger to the West, far greater than Saddam Hussein of Iraq used to be. Erdogan’s ironically named ”Justice and Development Party”, or AKP is a mere nationalist platform of yes-men from which the little Turkish Mussolini can tune his loud pitches on the open strings of his Islamist followers.

The Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation appealed to the decision yet the liquidation committee rejected their appeal last May. The churches, monasteries and cemeteries whose ownerships were given to the Treasury were then transferred to the Diyanet.

Inquiries of the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation revealed that dozens of churches and monasteries had been transferred to the Treasury first and then allocated to the Diyanet. And the cemeteries have been transferred to the Metropolitan Municipality of Mardin. The maintenance of some of the churches and monasteries are currently being provided by the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation and they are opened to worship on certain days. Similarly, the cemeteries are still actively used by the Syriac community who visits them and performs burial procedures. The Syriacs have appealed to the Court for the cancellation of the decision.

“We started to file lawsuits and in the meantime our enquiries continued” said Kuryakos Ergün, the Chairman of Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation. Ergün said they would appeal to the court for the cancellation of nearly 30 title deed registries.

Included in the seizure is the 1600-year-old Mor Gabriel Monastery:

Foundation of Mor Gabriel Monastery, filed a court case at the Civil Court of First Instance in Mardin against the registration of title deed records in the name of Treasury.

In the petition filed to the court it has been noted that the properties subject to the court case had been, since ancient times, under the possession and ownership of the Foundation and the significance of Mor Gabriel Monastery has been underlined; “Its history dates back to the 4th century AD. The Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in the world which is still active and is one of the most ancient religious centers of Syriacs and the entire world with its history of more than 1600 years.

Midyat Syriac Deyrulumur Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation had been established on the basis of the imperial order of Sultan Abdülmecid Han during the Ottoman Empire in “1267 Islamic calendar (1851/1852 Gregorian calendar) and its status was redefined, became a legal entity, on the basis of the Foundations Law of 13.06.1935 with no 2762.

The Foundation had been recognised as “a religious community foundation” on the basis of a Regulation issued in 2002 by the Directorate General of Foundation and was included in the List of Religious Community Foundations drafted same year. Foundations that I’m not included in this list are in not recognised as religious community foundations.”

Tuesday, July 4, 2017 9:40 AM

Thursday, June 8, 2017 5:43 PM

Tuesday, June 6, 2017 8:43 AM

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D- Day Could Say That Today, That London Couldn’t Create A D-Day, Nor The French Free The Kent, Or Brighton, Brighton Under The Boots Of Enemy In The Air Of Allah Ahkbar, In The Rule Of Sharia…For The Growth Of The Ummah

Those On Our Shore Are No French, No Belgium, Nor British, They Are A Poisonous Gift From Germany, Nobody Did See That Coming…. So Did The Unknown Soldier In Calais…